Tjaden elected fellow of ASHA

Kris Tjaden, professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences, has been named a fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).

Fellowship is one of the highest forms of recognition of an individual’s accomplishments given by ASHA, the national professional, scientific and credentialing association for audiologists; speech-language pathologists; speech, language and hearing scientists; audiology and speech-language pathology support personnel; and students.

Tjaden, who also serves as associate dean for faculty affairs for the College of Arts and Sciences, was elected a fellow based on her excellence in research, education and service to the profession.

A UB faculty member since 1998, Tjaden directs the Motor Speech Disorders Laboratory, which investigates speech production deficits in persons with neurologic impairment, such as Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis.

The overall aim of the National Institutes of Health-funded research, now in its 13th year of funding, is to describe the manner in which different types of neurologic lesions, or dysarthrias, affect spoken communication. Researchers also aim to identify therapeutic techniques most effective for maximizing intelligibility and speech naturalness in dysarthria — and the underlying speech production changes responsible for adjustments in intelligibility and naturalness.

A prolific scholar, Tjaden has authored or co-authored 45 articles in professional publications, edited or co-edited five book chapters and presented numerous papers and posters at professional conferences. She was a standing member of the NIH’s Motor Function Speech Rehabilitation Study Section from 2011-16, and has continuously served as an ad hoc reviewer for the NIH since 1998.

She is a former chair and member of the Research and Scientific Affairs Committee and Science Advisory Board of the ASHA.

Tjaden earned a BA in psychology from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa; an MA in communicative disorders from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities; and a PhD in communicative disorders from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.